In his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Holocaust survivor, author and activist Elie Wiesel wrote what he felt as a boy being taken into “the Kingdom of Night”:
“I remember he asked his father: ‘Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed?’”
Now in the 21st century there is no doubt a child in Ukraine is asking that same question. And at the same time there are deniers refusing to believe the veracity of the very Holocaust that Wiesel survived.
But make no mistake, in 2022 we are witnessing man’s very real inhumanity to man, and not just in Ukraine. Here in the U.S., this type of war is hard to grasp.
We live in a country where we have the luxury of fighting over mask mandates, microaggressions or turning school board meetings into tag-team wrestling matches in “culture wars” of banning books, or bathroom access or LGBT rights. These are first-world problems that suddenly look small against a backdrop of war on TV every night.
So maybe we should put away petty politics and see the Ukrainian people in real crisis with truly existential problems in a nation under siege. That is brutal warfare. But how can this happen?
Volatire wrote, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
We live in an age where absurdities are written, the truth is twisted and sold as media content by anyone and everyone with any kind of media access. And the press of a button can send it around the world and back in an instant.
This is not just a foreign problem. Here at home many of us float between alleged “truths” that are anything but real. Like immature children, we accept everything that confirms our world view and reject all else, lest we be triggered by facing an uncomfortable reality.
That is certainly the case in Russia. But here at home there are a growing number of people believing the most absurd things about their fellow Americans and residents. Much of that is to dehumanize people who don’t look or worship or love like we do.
Subversive media types are normalizing hate and normalizing the acceptance of things that were never true while denying other things that are true. And for some it has sparked outrage for which the only acceptable ultimate outlet is violence; violence made more palatable by disdain for those we deem less deserving of human dignity or respect.
Understanding and compromise have been portrayed as weakness, while force and violence sold as strength. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unprovoked war is the desperate weakest act of the mentally and morally bankrupt.
In that same 1986 Nobel acceptance speech Wiesel said, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor.” There is only one oppressor here. Russia rolled tanks and troops across the border.
Turn on your television tonight. Don’t look for some media pundit who will tell you what you want to hear. Don’t look for someone that in any way sides with or excuses Putin and Russia. There can be no neutrality, and there is only one side to take.
President Zelensky of Ukraine certainly did not want this war. But he has been forced to react in a way best stated by President James Garfield: “Of course I deprecate war, but if it is brought to my door the bringer will find me at home.”
And war has indeed been brought to Ukraine’s door and with it the terrible costs.
So, now we have the images of innocents dying, bombs falling on homes, schools and hospitals. Look at the bloodshed, the tears, the loss of life. Families ripped apart. Cities leveled by mortars, missiles and rockets. Innocent civilians dead in the streets. Mass graves. Refugees trying to outrun a world gone mad.
Look at men kissing their wives and children goodbye. Those who remain and fight carry only the hope that they will save a free homeland safe enough for their family to return. They carry an even fainter hope that they themselves will survive to see that day of return.
This is reality. Ukrainians are dying to protect their homes. Russians are dying in a foreign land to do the bidding of a modern-day Napoleon. They’re dying at the hands of Ukrainians forced to kill, not because they want to, but because they must do so to survive.
Sadly the story of hatred and war is universal. In just the last three decades we’ve seen these wars in Syria, Sudan, Rwanda, the Balkans, Yemen, Somalia and many more. The story is always the same: nationalism fed by hatred over ethnic, racial or religious differences. The dreams of more power for one country or one people over another explode into violence, destruction and death.
And it would all be so easy if somewhere we could identify and isolate those who threaten the peace. But it’s not so easy. Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”
That dividing line is much thinner than we imagine. And convincing just enough people to accept the absurdities that fuel atrocities is far easier now than it has ever been. That is why from Ukraine to here at home it is time to take the only side we can take.
